DEL STONE JR.: Look back to the '60s for some great TV shows

Published: Friday, August 1, 2014 at 05:27 PM.

As I smuggled the cap gun into my sixth-grade classroom, I felt a delicious thrill run through me.
I was a spy.
The gun, which had a detachable extended barrel and a shoulder stock, was inspired by my favorite TV show, “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” I loved that show so much I hummed the theme song constantly, and my friend Johnny and I practiced karate chops on each other’s necks until we ended up black and blue.
Come to think of it, lots of TV shows from the 1960s exerted an undue influence on me. Maybe I was at that age where television, and the beautiful people therein, achieved a prominence in my worldview that faded as I grew older.
Or maybe TV was just better in the ‘60s.
Another show I never missed was “The Invaders.” Roy Thinnes was architect David Vincent, who witnessed an alien spacecraft landing in a remote wooded area and discovered an invasion plot. Thereafter he traveled the country, warning others about the threat. The aliens had an odd way of holding their pinkies away from the other fingers. I did the same for a day or two and wondered if anyone would notice. Nobody did, which might explain why “The Invaders” was canceled after its second season.
In some ways “The Invaders” resembled the “The Fugitive,” in which David Janssen played Dr. Richard Kimble, who traveled the country looking for the one-armed man who had murdered his wife, a crime for which Kimble was wrongly blamed. Unlike “The Invaders,” Kimble found the real killer and was exonerated. I never saw that episode.
Another episode I never saw was the infamous neck-biting scene in “Dark Shadows,” where the vampire, Barnabas Collins, prepares to bite the neck of a woman he has been keeping in a dungeonlike prison cell. All summer the show built up to that scene. When the day arrived, we tuned in to “Dark Shadows,” practically palpitating with expectation. And just as Barnabas approached the cell to do the evil deed, our TV cable went off the air. It didn’t come back on until half an hour later.
Another trio of science-fiction TV shows kept me glued to the television — “The Time Tunnel,” “Land of the Giants” and “Lost in Space.” My favorite of the three was “Lost in Space,” although the robot struck me as oddly familiar. Later I discovered it was designed by the same fellow who designed Robby the Robot for the 1956 movie “Forbidden Planet.”
On Mondays in the late ’60s, everybody watched “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” an incredible comedy for its time. “Laugh-In” featured an ensemble cast doing sketch comedy, some of it dangerously risqué for those days, some of it highly political, which was unusual outside of nightclubs. It also launched the careers of comedy greats like Ruth Buzzi, Judy Carne, Richard Dawson, Henry Gibson, Goldie Hawn, Arte Johnson, Dave Madden, Gary Owens, Lilly Tomlin and Jo Anne Worley. Sadly, it replaced my beloved “Man From U.N.C.L.E.”
Probably the most memorable show of the ’60s was the original “Star Trek,” which lasted a mere three seasons. “To boldly go where no man has gone before” was revised for “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in the 1990s to say, “To boldly go where no one has gone before,” to give you an idea of the political incorrectness of ’60s. Capt. Kirk romanced women, human or alien, or slapped women to get them to stop screaming. Spock was not quite so zen-like in his demeanor, and the good Dr. McCoy, or Bones, had not yet inspired a generation of memes like, “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not an escalator.”
Let me wrap by mentioning “The Outer Limits,” a kind of “Twilight Zone” on steroids. While “Twilight Zone” episodes were often unsettling, “The Outer Limits” was downright terrifying. It aired in the early to mid-’60s and was way ahead of its time, always featuring a science-based plotline with scary monsters to keep little boys awake well into the night.
No wonder my parents didn’t let me watch it. But that’s OK. Because now I’ve got the box set.

Contact online editor Del Stone Jr. at 850-315-4433 or at dstone@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on twitter at @delsnwfdn, and friend him on Facebook at dels nwfdn.

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As I smuggled the cap gun into my sixth-grade classroom, I felt a delicious thrill run through me.
I was a spy.
The gun, which had a detachable extended barrel and a shoulder stock, was inspired by my favorite TV show, “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” I loved that show so much I hummed the theme song constantly, and my friend Johnny and I practiced karate chops on each other’s necks until we ended up black and blue.
Come to think of it, lots of TV shows from the 1960s exerted an undue influence on me. Maybe I was at that age where television, and the beautiful people therein, achieved a prominence in my worldview that faded as I grew older.
Or maybe TV was just better in the ‘60s.
Another show I never missed was “The Invaders.” Roy Thinnes was architect David Vincent, who witnessed an alien spacecraft landing in a remote wooded area and discovered an invasion plot. Thereafter he traveled the country, warning others about the threat. The aliens had an odd way of holding their pinkies away from the other fingers. I did the same for a day or two and wondered if anyone would notice. Nobody did, which might explain why “The Invaders” was canceled after its second season.
In some ways “The Invaders” resembled the “The Fugitive,” in which David Janssen played Dr. Richard Kimble, who traveled the country looking for the one-armed man who had murdered his wife, a crime for which Kimble was wrongly blamed. Unlike “The Invaders,” Kimble found the real killer and was exonerated. I never saw that episode.
Another episode I never saw was the infamous neck-biting scene in “Dark Shadows,” where the vampire, Barnabas Collins, prepares to bite the neck of a woman he has been keeping in a dungeonlike prison cell. All summer the show built up to that scene. When the day arrived, we tuned in to “Dark Shadows,” practically palpitating with expectation. And just as Barnabas approached the cell to do the evil deed, our TV cable went off the air. It didn’t come back on until half an hour later.
Another trio of science-fiction TV shows kept me glued to the television — “The Time Tunnel,” “Land of the Giants” and “Lost in Space.” My favorite of the three was “Lost in Space,” although the robot struck me as oddly familiar. Later I discovered it was designed by the same fellow who designed Robby the Robot for the 1956 movie “Forbidden Planet.”
On Mondays in the late ’60s, everybody watched “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” an incredible comedy for its time. “Laugh-In” featured an ensemble cast doing sketch comedy, some of it dangerously risqué for those days, some of it highly political, which was unusual outside of nightclubs. It also launched the careers of comedy greats like Ruth Buzzi, Judy Carne, Richard Dawson, Henry Gibson, Goldie Hawn, Arte Johnson, Dave Madden, Gary Owens, Lilly Tomlin and Jo Anne Worley. Sadly, it replaced my beloved “Man From U.N.C.L.E.”
Probably the most memorable show of the ’60s was the original “Star Trek,” which lasted a mere three seasons. “To boldly go where no man has gone before” was revised for “Star Trek: The Next Generation” in the 1990s to say, “To boldly go where no one has gone before,” to give you an idea of the political incorrectness of ’60s. Capt. Kirk romanced women, human or alien, or slapped women to get them to stop screaming. Spock was not quite so zen-like in his demeanor, and the good Dr. McCoy, or Bones, had not yet inspired a generation of memes like, “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not an escalator.”
Let me wrap by mentioning “The Outer Limits,” a kind of “Twilight Zone” on steroids. While “Twilight Zone” episodes were often unsettling, “The Outer Limits” was downright terrifying. It aired in the early to mid-’60s and was way ahead of its time, always featuring a science-based plotline with scary monsters to keep little boys awake well into the night.
No wonder my parents didn’t let me watch it. But that’s OK. Because now I’ve got the box set.

Contact online editor Del Stone Jr. at 850-315-4433 or at dstone@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on twitter at @delsnwfdn, and friend him on Facebook at dels nwfdn.